Talk about video games, movies, music, news, and technology without wading through a thousand dumb kids and dozen exclamation points after each sentence. Try it out for a few days and remember what it's like to breathe Internet air without getting two lungs full of stupid.

Hitoshi Yamagami from one of the software development teams at Nintendo just took the stage.

Mr. Yamagami says that #CodeNameSTEAM is a turn based strategy game with a variety of unique features

And if Nintendo is developing a strategy game, of course the developer is going to be...Intelligent Systems!

Paul Patrashcu and Takako Sakai from Intelligent Systems just took the stage.

Mr. Yamagami wants to “find a way to introduce more people to strategy games & have them fall in love w/ them the way I have”

#CodeNameSTEAM uses action elements from shooters to enhance both movement and attacking.

#CodeNameSTEAM uses the unique touch screen features of the Nintendo #3DS to create an intuitive control system.

The fighters in #CodeNameSTEAM run on steam. Fighters have boilers and they have to pull from a limited amount of steam to perform attacks.

The game is structured as a campaign and divided into missions. Each mission has several maps.

As you play through the game, the boilers, weapons and characters available to you will increase.

Character design in #CodeNameSTEAM is based on American comic books. The developers were inspired by artists like Jack Kirby and Bruce Timm.

Main characters’ weapon design is based on the weapon's abilities and an animal motif based on the character's personality.

The terrain has a lot of depth and reflects the variety of strategic choices in the game.

The developers came up with some original aliens that riff on creatures from the Lovecraft mythos.

Overwatch attacks can stun & interrupt enemy movement. Save steam at the end of a turn to attack enemies when in range.

Each character has a main weapon but you can also equip a second "sub-weapon" for each character.

Each character also has a “Special Ability” that can be used once per map. No two are the same.

Takes place in 19th century steampunk London. S.T.E.A.M. stands for Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace, a unit created by Abraham Lincoln to defend against an invasion from space. Valkyria Chronicles and XCOM being mentioned from those attending the Roundtable Dicussion. Taishi Senda, who worked on the Advance Wars series, is composing the soundtrack.

Valkyria Chronicles is the worst. I hope they were just pandering to fanboys when they said that.

From the Treehouse demo, I went from 'this is VC' to 'this is XCOM with a VC perspective'

Basically, you can drop turrets, use Overwatch, and jump clear over obstacles. Characters get gear that give you these different abilities, and IS said they really loved the Overwatch ability in other strat games. So they're using good sources as inspiration. Also neat in the demo, they show that your steam (AP) can also drop if you take fire on your turn. So if you maneuver sloppy you loose your turn.